As a software development professional with 15+ years of experience, I’ve encountered many teams that find it challenging to scale Scrum. The Scrum of Scrums is an excellent solution for larger projects. It helps improve alignment across multiple Scrum teams working on more complicated projects. So, I’ll show you how to properly implement the Scrum of Scrums and increase your team’s output.
Understanding Scrum of Scrums (SoS)
Scrum of Scrums is a scaling methodology within agile project management. It’s specifically designed for coordinating multiple Scrum teams that are all working on the same project. Therefore, SoS meetings differ from traditional Scrum meetings in scale and focus. Rather than focusing on each individual team’s progress, the SoS meeting is focused on cross-team coordination.
You should utilize SoS when your project is too large for a single Scrum team to handle. This situation arises when you have three or more scrum teams all working on interconnected parts of the same project. Therefore, SoS is critical to keep everything aligned and manage cross-team dependencies.
The benefits of using Scrum of Scrums for large projects include:
- Better communication across teams.
- Faster identification, and resolution, of cross-team impediments.
- Increased visibility across the entire project.
- Better management of shared resources.
- Ensuring teams are all following the same practices.
- Increased opportunity for knowledge sharing.
Scrum of Scrums is the best methodology for managing large projects. It ensures all teams are working in the same direction. It’s especially helpful if you’re dealing with a complex system or product that requires collaboration across multiple teams.
Structure and Participants in Large-Scale Agile Coordination
The Scrum of Scrums meeting will generally include the Scrum Masters from each team. Occasionally, team members with specific insights about cross-team dependencies will attend, and, in a few cases, Product Owners may also participate to share insights about the product’s direction and priorities.
The Scrum of Scrums meeting should ideally include 5-10 people, as this number provides enough diversity of thought without becoming too chaotic. If you have more teams, you might consider a hierarchy of SoS meetings.
Scrum of Scrums meetings should occur two to three times per week, and they typically last around 15-30 minutes. You can adjust the meeting’s frequency according to your project’s needs and the interdependence of the teams.
Inside the Scrum of Scrums, the Scrum Master moves beyond their team and takes responsibility for facilitating cross-team communication and helping resolve any inter-team impediments. Members from each team will share what they’re working on and discuss any problems impacting other teams, and Product Owners will check for alignment with the broader product.
Essential Elements of Multi-Team Coordination Sessions
The Scrum of Scrums meeting agenda typically includes:
- Progress updates towards sprint goals
- Cross-team dependency discussion
- Impediment identification impacting multiple teams
- Shared resource coordination
- Upcoming integration planning
SoS meetings are primarily about cross-team dependencies and integration. You’ll talk about how one team’s work affects another team’s work. This helps avoid conflicts and ensure different teams’ work integrates smoothly.
The key activity in SoS is identifying and resolving obstacles. You’ll talk about obstacles that are preventing several teams from working or require coordination to fix. This pre-solving of issues ensures a small issue doesn’t become a big problem.
SoS is also an excellent opportunity to discuss solutions. You can talk about a solution within your team that other teams might also be facing. This solution talk across teams helps make the overall project more efficient and higher quality.
Effective Coordination in Large-Scale Agile Projects
To get started with StS at your company:
- Determine a pain point with cross-team coordination.
- Appoint one representative from each team.
- Schedule regular meetings.
- Decide on a meeting structure and agenda.
- Test with a pilot set of teams.
- Collect feedback and make adjustments.
- Slowly add more teams.
As your company scales, you can scale StS. You may begin with one StS for a group of teams that work closely together. Then you can introduce additional StS meetings for different departments or product lines.
Ensure StS has decision-making power. Members should be able to make decisions and commitments on behalf of their teams. This will prevent bottlenecks and keep the process efficient.
StS meetings can leverage any virtual meeting software, project management tools, and shared dashboards to follow up on cross-team dependencies, track progress, and document decisions.
Challenges and Solutions in Scrum of Scrums
Common challenges with SoS execution include:
- Meetings that run too long or lack focus
- Lack of decision-making authority within the SoS
- Failure to follow up on action items
- Lack of preparation from team representatives
- SoS meetings that are too focused on reporting status as opposed to working to solve problems
To ensure SoS meetings are productive and remain on track, define a clear agenda. Discuss only relevant topics that span multiple teams. Keep updates brief and encourage discussions focused on what each team will do about the problems discussed. You can even use a timer to control meeting length.
To eliminate communication silos between teams, create a culture of openness. Ask teams to share information with each other without you asking. Use the same terms and definitions and reference the same sources of truth between teams.
Balancing autonomy and SoS can be a difficult task. Let each team own their work while still ensuring that everyone aligns with cross-team goals. Don’t tell teams how to do their jobs—just guide them as they seek to achieve shared outcomes.
Variations of Scrum of Scrums
Meta Scrum is another variation that focuses on product-level alignment, involving Product Owners and key stakeholders who align on the product vision, roadmap, and high-level requirements. This ensures that multiple teams or products are building the same thing.
For larger organizations, you might have a Scrum of Scrum of Scrums to integrate the work of multiple teams. This creates a hierarchy of alignment meetings. Each meeting addresses alignment at a different scale.
You can use the Scrum of Scrums format in any organization. In a matrix organization, you might have Scrum of Scrum meetings for functional areas and Scrum of Scrum of Scrum meetings for product lines. In a project-based organization, Scrum of Scrums can ensure alignment across related projects.
Some hybrid solutions combine the Scrum of Scrums format with another agile framework. For example, you might use Scrum of Scrums in combination with SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) or LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum). These hybrid solutions provide the best of both worlds: a framework and flexibility for large-scale agile development.
Measuring Success in Scrum of Scrums
Key cross-team KPIs to measure SoS effectiveness:
- Fewer cross-team impediments
- More predictable releases
- Higher team alignment on product goals
- Faster cross-team issue resolution
- Higher overall project velocity
You can measure improved cross-team collaboration through surveys and other qualitative and quantitative KPIs. Look for more knowledge sharing and smoother team integrations. You can measure this through fewer integration issues and faster issue resolution.
You can measure the impact of SoS on project delivery by tracking:
- Features delivered on time
- Less unplanned work
- Higher quality results of projects
- Higher customer satisfaction
These KPIs will tell you if your SoS is working to scale your company. Additionally, they provide data points to iterate and improve your scaling agile strategy.
In Summary
The Scrum of Scrums is an excellent way to scale agile principles. It promotes collaboration, efficiency, and makes even the most challenging projects easy to manage. You now understand the Scrum of Scrums structure, participants, and key elements. We’ve discussed how to implement it, the main challenges, and various adaptations. Succeeding in SoS requires strong communication, objectives, and always improving. Use this information on your next projects. See your teams work together seamlessly.
